Well, it's interesting to read the Edinburgh Evening News reporting on the results of the Park Green consultation, conducted in response to a Green Party proposal to put in place differential parking charges for cars, based on their emissions.

The Evening News argues it's not for the council to tell people what kind of car to drive, but everyone else (OK 79% of them) seems to say well er, yes it is. Probably because everyone knows there's no need to run a high polluting vehicle, unless you have an unconcious insecurity over the size of your bits.Or you're a farmer, and there aren't many of them in Morningside.

And despite how the Evening News wish to spin it, the proposals are a tax cut, with CEC foregoing £50,000 of parking permit revenue, and 2/3 of drivers paying the same or less. It's only second car owners, and people with crazy sized cars that pay more, and so they should.

So, if you're a car driver, chances are you'll pay less. And if you're a pedestrian or a cyclist, this proposal will help to improve air quality, improve our health, cut climate change pollution and reduce the numbers of massive anti-social posh trucks bearing down upon us. What's not to like?

Despite the fact that LibDem transport convener Phil Wheeler seems to favour the idea, there is still a chance that the crazy coalition government in Edinburgh could ignore the results of their own consultation, and choose not to implement the Park Green proposals, just to spite the Greens.

If you don't want that to happen you should email the leader of the council, Jenny Dawe and tell her that you think it would be great if the LibDems implemented these results. I already have. If you have any local libdem or SNP councillors it probably wouldn't do any harm to write to them too.

Hillary Benn came to Leith yesterday for a 'question and answer' session on Climate Change organised by our local MP Mark Lazarowitcz. Mr Benn is nothing if not brave to face the public on this one, and I have to confess I was pretty amazed in the turn out for the meeting. It must have been the busiest Pilrig church has been for some time. There were some local Labour activists whom I recognised, but the majority of the audience was made up of green activists from all over the city. It did beg the question where were the Labour supporters? It may seem trite, but the turn out to the event  did help to restore my faith in UK democracy a wee bit. If nothing else it is pleasing to know that cabinet ministers do sometimes leave the Westminster bubble.

Hillary didn't preach from the pulpit, but he did open with a 5 minute speech where he set out the climate change issues fairly well. I wished I had my camera at one point as he stood, poised like a methodist preacher dramatically pointing to the light overhead, presumably trying to strike the fear of god into us, asking:

"How will we make the emissions cuts we need to save the planet and keep the lights on at the same time?"

Sadly, Benn did not inspire faith in the Labour party's ability to respond to the climate challenge. And indeed,  it seems Hillary  was looking to God for some help.  There were plenty of questions from the audience:

• Why is Labour keen to support new nuclear and new coal?
• Why is Labour promoting the expansion of air travel at the expense of trains?
• What is Labour doing to address the prohibitive national grid transmission charges that stifles the development of Scottish renewables?
• What is Labour doing to promote micro renewables and support community owned energy companies?
• What will Labour do to support people to improve the energy efficiency in older properties, where planning restrictions currently forbid even the installation of double glazing?
• Why does the westminster climate change bill currently allow the UK to buy CO2 offsets abroad rather than forcing us to reduce our own emissions?
• Why isn't Labour doing more to help people, especially the poorest, tackle fuel poverty and climate change by improving housing standards?
• Why isn't Labour bringing forwards zero emissions building regulations given the urgency of the climate change challenge?

Surely that is not a success? Surely we should be aiming for more people travelling by train than ever. Full stop. Hillary says he can't stop people wanting to travel by plane, and to some extent that's true. But there was no leadership coming from him on the issue, no resolution to drive a modal shift towards trains, or more sustainable transport use through government policy. And he used the same argument on every issue. It is not governments fault if people want to use loads of electricity/ fly by plane/ buy energy inefficient houses/ prevent wind farms on their doorstep - it's yours. So do something about it.

The touble was, he was speaking to an audience who spend a lot of their time trying to do exactly that. Hillary did motivate  everyone to take action, that's for sure. Leaving the meeting, everyone was indeed fired up to go out and change something. In most cases, it was the government.

In Edinburgh, The SNP have bounced their LibDem 'coalition partners' into backtracking on their support for a scheme that would see owners of the most heavily polluting vehicles pay more to park in the city. The original proposals were drawn up after the full council accepted an amendment by Green councillor Steve Burgess in November last year.

Despite the fact that the modest proposals would see 66% of permit holders pay less (if they owned lower emissions vehicles) and that the scheme was revenue neutral overall, the SNP seen to have allowed the petrol heads on the Evening News discussion boards dictate their policy. This move is just as wrong headed as their decision to subsidise fisherman's fuel costs up North. 

Cllr Burgess said:

"The SNP have succeeded in rolling the LibDems over on this. At the beginning of the week the Council leader Jenny Dawe was arguing in favour of the scheme but now her group have accepted an SNP tactic that kicks the scheme into the long grass. Sadly, it now remains to be seen whether the SNP will succeed, with Tory support, in totally scuppering the scheme.

"The time for dilly-dallying over action to reduce climate pollution should be over. The Council could have shown leadership today. Sadly it has missed an opportunity."

It's touching to hear Alex Salmond is going to share his personal story about living with Athsma. Maybe the rest of his party could support him, me, and the thousands of others, whose asthma is affected by poor air quality in the city, by backing this measure?

On building standards the council has just made an even worse decision by refusing to take action that would improve the energy efficiency of new medium size buildings in the city. For buildings 500m2 - 1000m2 the current standards are lower than those recomended by the Scottish Government. The LibDems promised to make Edinburgh a sustainable city. I'm not seeing how this is going to happen anytime soon with 'leadership' like this.

I'm loving the irony. SNP and LibDems leap to the attack when Labour in Westminster proposes to introduce a retrospective tax on the owners of cars with high CO2 emissions.

Meanwhile SNP and LibDem coalition administration proposes parking permit taxes based on, er, owners of cars with high CO2 emissions, that will apply to all car owners, so this too is, ahem, a retrospective tax on motorists. Nice timing. Surely they could have at least waited with this one until after the byelection is over? You would have thought they would - but in fact they were so keen to get this out, that it seems they even forgot to circulate the report to the opposition.

Although Adopted Domain is of course broadly in favour of Carbon taxes I do agree that the retrospective application of these taxes is slightly unfair - and in the case of Labours road tax, probably beyond what people would consider as reasonable.

Another problem with retrospective taxes is that they encourage people to buy new cars, and that isn't good. In most cases I suspect the most environmentally friendly form of car ownership is to keep a small engined old car on the road for as long as possible - even if it's emissions are slightly higher than a brand new car of equivalent engine size. That's my excuse for my half share in a total jalopy at any rate. Retrospective taxes based on emissions might encourage people like me to think about getting a new car though, despite all the extra energy and resources used to make it.

Provided they're implemented fairly then, I'm all in favour of big tax sticks and big tax carrots to encourage people into lower emissions cars, or in Edinburgh's case - the City Car Club. Afterall a ton of CO2 saved now is much more efffective and cheaper than having to save several tons later on.

The hysterical pro-motoring lobby are pulling out all the stops as usual, though, with an impressive call to 'think about disabled people' - who apparently need vehicles with large engines because they need to fit their wheel chairs in.

Surely the most ridiculous claim the petrol heads have made yet?